by Jayne Davis
Brevare nodded at her, as one would dismiss a servant, and went over to the door, calling for the innkeeper. He almost collided with Leon returning, followed by one of the serving women. “Ah, there you are,” Brevare said to the woman. “Bring me a glass for the wine, and some cheese. And a bottle of brandy—something decent.” He took his wine to the table nearest the fire and sat down.
Leon glanced over at Brevare, then put a key on the table next to Phoebe.
“Your room key,” he said, his voice too low for Brevare to hear. “They had a spare. I’ve had them light a fire in there. You can go any time you wish.”
She glanced up. He was looking at her hand, still gripping the glass too tightly. She made an effort to relax it.
“They have also lit a fire in the parlour,” he added. “Would you prefer to eat in there?”
Brevare looked settled by the fire in here.
“Yes, that would be preferable, thank you.”
Chapter 12
Phoebe shivered at the chill in the parlour and rubbed her arms. Leon pulled a table closer to the fire and held a chair for her. She smiled—the gentlemanly action seemed incongruous in the circumstances.
“They only had soup and cold food left,” he said, as the serving woman pushed the door open and brought a laden tray over to their table. Phoebe’s stomach rumbled at the savoury smell of the onion soup, and she picked up her spoon eagerly.
“It’s good, then?” Leon asked, as she spooned the last few mouthfuls from the bowl.
She glanced up; he was leaning back in his chair, a smile curving his lips. She had completely ignored him while she ate. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Wine? They have some surprisingly good vintages here.”
She nodded. He poured wine, and pushed a plate towards her with slices of cold meat and bread. A bowl of fruit and a platter of pastries stood ready for later. Leon helped himself to an apple.
“How is your arm?” she asked, catching a flash of blue silk beneath the cuff of his shirt.
“Fine,” he said. “Have some more ham.”
“Hmm. My father had several patients—all men—who would say that whatever their injury.” Had she been rude, effectively telling him he was lying? Perhaps not—his wry smile showed amusement.
“Very well. It aches like the blazes at the moment, but no doubt you’ll say it’s my own fault for driving all afternoon.”
Phoebe looked down at her plate, feeling her cheeks heat. Those words had been on the tip of her tongue. Hearing a chuckle, she glanced at his face.
“Miss Deane, please just say what you think. I mean that.”
No. Not when her thoughts were on the attractive creases beside his eyes when he smiled, the warm glow she felt at having someone concerned for her well-being.
What had she been saying? His arm… “No sign of increased redness? It doesn’t feel hot?”
“No, not in the bit I’ve inspected. How long do your stitches need to stay in?”
“A week, or a few days longer, but you’ll be in England by then.”
He hesitated before he spoke. “I’m glad your father allowed you to help him.”
Phoebe nodded, a lump coming to her throat.
“You still miss them,” Leon said gently.
Blinking, she looked away. She was not accustomed to sympathy.
“Don’t talk about it if you’d rather not.”
She found she wanted to tell him, wanted someone else to appreciate what her parents had been like. “Papa cared for his patients, and Mama helped him with his practice. He caught scarlatina, and Mama fell ill while nursing him. Joe, my brother, was at sea.” They had both died before her letter telling of their illness could have reached Joe.
“Your father was a physician?”
“He could have trained as one, but he chose to be a surgeon and an apothecary instead. He thought that would serve the people better.”
“Something your aunt would not have agreed with.”
“No, indeed.” Although they had not been poor, they’d had to be careful with money, but she knew her mother would not have exchanged her situation for any amount of wealth or status. She felt an impulse to tell him more of her life and her parents, but did not. This could not be why he’d wanted to talk to her.
“Why am I here?” she asked, firmly turning the subject.
“Apart from eating, you mean?”
Phoebe raised an eyebrow. She knew prevarication when she heard it.
Leon got up to put more wood on the fire, then stood leaning on the mantelpiece.
“What is it you want?” she asked, her earlier curiosity returning.
Alex gazed into the fire, its crackling the only sound in the room. He still hadn’t decided how much he should confide in her.
One of his problems was Brevare. He could start there without telling any of—any more of—his secrets. “What did Brevare say to upset you in the parlour?”
Her face reddened, and she turned her eyes to the table.
“Miss Deane?”
She met his eyes briefly. “He asked—no, instructed—me to steal the message tonight and take it to him. I was to put it back later so you didn’t know it had been taken.”
His muscles tensed. “He assumed I’d be taking advantage of you—”
She shook her head. “That says more about his morals than yours. But I don’t need to worry,” she added, the corners of her mouth turning down. “He said we could come to some arrangement, so I won’t lose out when the comtesse dismisses me.”
Damn Brevare! He would not let her be subject to that. “Your uncle…?”
“I don’t think he’ll cast me out,” she said. Her tone was certain, but her expression said there were other things she was concerned about.
“Don’t be too concerned. I’ll make sure you come to no harm—and not in the way Brevare implied.” Bella would help, if he asked her, but that was a problem for later. Then the last part of her sentence sunk in. “He still thinks you’re her servant?”
“He really isn’t very observant, is he?” Her pursed mouth now looked as if she were suppressing a laugh.
“Unlike you—you would make an excellent spy.” It was true. She was intelligent and perceptive; resilient, too, to be sitting here talking with him calmly, after all she’d been through.
Brevare didn’t want to take the message—he wanted to copy it. That was new information; what would Miss Deane make of it? Reaching his decision, he resumed his seat. He poured himself more wine and offered her the pastries.
“I need an ally,” he said. “Getting the message to England was originally simple enough, but Brevare turned up, and now I’ve got Perrault to deal with. I told Perrault he’ll get a share of the ransom, but I don’t think he believes me, and he seems to have absconded. Then there’s your aunt, who will antagonise everyone she comes across unless she is kept under control.”
Miss Deane had become increasingly wide-eyed as he spoke, the pastry ignored on the plate in front of her. “You think you can trust me?” she asked. “You don’t really know much about me.”
He knew enough. “You trust me,” he said. “You wouldn’t be in here alone with me otherwise.”
She nodded, her expression thoughtful.
“I suppose we are both taking a bit of a gamble,” he added.
“Very well.” She held her glass up. “Allies.”
“Confusion to our enemies,” he said, touching his glass to hers.
“Brevare being the main enemy?”
“Perrault, too, but I’ll come to that later. I can’t work out why Brevare hasn’t just stuck a knife in my back and taken the packet.”
Her mouth fell open for a moment. He’d shocked her, but it wasn’t fair to gloss over the possible dangers. “You can change your mind,” he said, hoping she wouldn’t. “Go to bed—you’ll be safe if you lock yourself in. We should reach the coast tomorrow, and you’ll be on the boat the day after.”
“I won’t
change my mind.” Her chin lifted as she spoke. “I’ll help if I can, but I don’t know what I can do.”
“Listen, think. You’re perceptive, you work things out—I’d like to hear what you make of it all.”
Her cheeks reddened again, and she took a sip of wine.
“I’ve been finding contacts,” he began. “People who might be useful for supplying information or hiding someone. The message is a list of their details.”
“Only you, not Brevare?”
“Only me.”
“Is there too much on the list for you to remember?”
“Yes. I could probably recall a fair amount of it, but not enough. Not all the addresses and code words. If the French authorities get hold of the list, it will be disastrous for the people on it.”
Her brows creased as she thought. “It mustn’t fall into the wrong hands,” she said slowly. “Is that more important than delivering it?”
He nodded—he had been right to take her into his confidence. She’d worked out his main worry straight away.
“You could destroy the paper.”
“I will if I have to.” Even though that would waste months of effort.
“So Brevare is working for the French?”
That was what he’d been trying to reason out. “He must be in some way, obviously, but not directly. I’ve been acquainted with him for a few years, seeing him at race meetings, clubs, and so on. A couple of days before we came across your party, Brevare found me. He said he’d been sent to warn me that the authorities knew where I was and what I was doing, and it was time to leave before they caught up with me.”
“But you didn’t believe him.”
“It wasn’t a bad story, but I was about return in any case and my… my superior knew that, so why would he send Brevare to find me? There were also certain safeguards—”
“Code words?”
“Something like that, yes. He didn’t have them. But until you told me he had asked for my list, I didn’t know for certain why he’d come. And now it appears he wants a copy of the list, not to steal it.”
She sipped her wine, her gaze on the fire. He had his own ideas, but he’d been thinking about it too long and wanted to see what she made of it all.
“How did he know where you were? He can’t have been wandering France looking for you.”
Another good question. “He knew. What does that tell you?”
“Someone in your… organisation… is working for France,” she said slowly, as if working through the implications as she spoke. “They have some information—where to find you—but they don’t know everything. The code words, for example.”
He nodded. “Go on.”
“If this person is part of your organisation, why didn’t he wait until you got back to get the names? Would it be harder to steal them once you have passed the information on?”
“Not necessarily.” Not if Marstone wasn’t aware they had a traitor in their midst. “It might be harder to copy it without being found out.”
“That’s it,” she said, eyes glowing. She sat forward, leaning her arms on the table. “If they know you have a list of… well, spies… if they get the names without you knowing, by copying the list… when others contact those people, or visit them, the… the net widens. Whoever it is gains more from copying the list than they would from stealing it,” she finished, leaning back in her chair, the shawl slipping off her shoulders.
He forced himself to concentrate on her words. “Yes—that explanation makes perfect sense.”
“It doesn’t explain why they sent someone as inept as Brevare,” she pointed out. “I suppose he knows what you look like, but if they knew where you were, they must have known what name you were using…” She hesitated. “At least… what is your name?”
“Alex Westbrook, at your service.” He bowed his head. “Alexander rather than Alexandre though. I use a variety of names, so they probably needed someone who could recognise me.” He looked at her glass. “More wine?”
She shook her head. “I’d prefer coffee, please.”
He glanced at the clock above the fire, surprised to see they had been in here over an hour. “I’ll see what they can do.”
Leon—Westbrook—walked to the door, shutting it behind him as he went out. Phoebe rubbed her temples. Had she really just held a conversation with a spy?
The packet she was carrying—she had guessed it might be troop locations, or numbers of cannon or warships, information that could affect the coming war. The real message carried responsibilities on a more personal level; many people could be arrested and executed if the authorities obtained the paper.
Moving over to the door she listened, then opened it a crack. She could hear the murmur of Westbrook’s voice from the taproom, but that was all. She put her hand down the front of her dress and retrieved the sealed packet.
A serving woman followed Westbrook into the room, setting a coffee pot and cups on the table. She cleared the dishes, leaving only a plate of pastries. Westbrook closed the door behind her, then took his seat and poured the coffee.
Phoebe held the message out. “I’m not sure I should be keeping this.”
He made no move to take it from her. “It’s safer with you than with me, as long as Brevare thinks I’ve still got it. If you don’t mind looking after it, that is.”
She looked at it doubtfully, turning it over in her hands. Knowing its contents made his trust in her even more surprising. The knowledge also piqued her curiosity. “Is it a list of names?”
“Open it.”
She glanced up at him, not sure she’d heard correctly.
“Go ahead.”
She broke the seal, unfolding the sheets of paper to find row after row of numbers. “Code?” Of course it was in code. “Will they know how to decode this if they do get it? I mean, would you decode it yourself when you get to London, or does someone in the organisation know what to do?”
“Excellent question. One or two people know. As the traitor found out where I was travelling, it is possible they also discovered the key.”
“How—? No. I don’t need to know,” Phoebe said firmly, shaking her head. In fact, it was safer if she did not.
Westbrook’s lips curved. “But you want to, naturally.” There was a definite twinkle in his eyes.
“Naturally!” She couldn’t help her answering smile.
“It’s a book code—the numbers represent pages and letters on the page. However, now I know there’s a traitor in the organisation, I should re-code it, in case it does fall into their hands.”
“Would it…?” Phoebe broke off, wondering if it was her place to suggest things. He had asked her to help. “Would it be better if it was coded with a book you haven’t been carrying around with you? Brevare might—”
“Good idea, yes. Providing someone in London can obtain the same edition.”
“It’s a new book. Shall I get it? You could re-code it now.”
“Do you have paper as well? I’d rather not ask the innkeeper.”
“My sketchbook.”
Westbrook went to the door and opened it cautiously, sticking his head out into the passage. He beckoned, and Phoebe slipped out and up the stairs.
Her room was warm, as he had promised. The fire was dying, so she added some wood from the pile before turning to her trunk. The clothing appeared undisturbed, and she lifted out the novel and her sketchbook. She stilled, gazing at them, then sat down on the bed.
So far, the events of this journey had been forced upon her; now she was on the point of choosing to participate in something dangerous. Even if it were no more than lending a book and carrying the message for another day, she could be putting herself in more danger. If she chose to stay here he would not come in search of her, she was sure.
She should do it to repay him for rescuing them, but gratitude wasn’t the only reason she returned to the parlour, or even the main one.
Westbrook’s fingers brushed hers lightly as he took
the novel. “The Pirate’s Cavern?” He smiled, then laughed. “That should do nicely.”
He locked the parlour door and placed his road guide on the table. Phoebe stared at it—he’d coded his message using the book Brevare had handed to her this morning?
“Really?”
He raised his brows, the quirk of his lips showing he wasn’t offended by her remark. “There is an added layer of coding—some numbers to add or subtract from the page and letter numbers. Nor would anyone wonder why I have this particular book with me.” He pulled his chair closer to the table. “If I turn the code back into names and addresses, you can redo it using your novel, if you will?”
Phoebe settled herself at the table while he decoded the first few lines onto sheets torn from her sketchbook. His fingers traced across the pages of the road guide as he counted letters, working with concentration. He had strong, square hands, the scrapes and cuts from the fight healing but still obvious.
She drank the coffee he’d poured, but it wasn’t the drink that made her feel alert, with a fluttery feeling of anticipation. A corner of her mouth lifted; it was likely to be a tedious, painstaking task, but she felt excited nonetheless.
Westbrook moved his chair round to sit beside her while he explained the method, coding one line himself as he talked. It was not difficult, and she worked on the next line while he watched, aware of his closeness but determined not to be distracted by it. She completed one more line before he moved his chair away again to continue decoding the original.
He worked much faster than Phoebe, giving her the last set of details while she was still only half-way through. Once he had finished, he sat and stared into the fire, nursing another glass of wine.
When she had finally completed her task, she handed over the papers. Westbrook tore up the original paper and the plain text version he’d just made, throwing them onto the flames and stirring with the poker until there were only tiny flakes of ash left.
“What should we do with this?” Phoebe asked, holding out her new version.
“I have an idea,” he said. “But it might be dangerous, so please do not feel obliged to accept.”
